Brian Stutland

Managing Member, Equity Armor Investments, LLC

When you think "Wall Street", you think New York. However, BrianStutland has brought Wall Street to Chicago and helped to create a second home in America forinvestors. After becoming a contributor to CNBC in 2008, Stutland has worked on shows such as "Options Action" and "Futures Now" in order to educate investors about the markets in Chicago. Broadcasting from both the Chicago Board Options Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange trading floors, Stutland gives regular weekly commentary on the ins and outs of the market from Soybean futures to S&P 500 index futures to the CBOE's Volatility Index (VIX). Th esuccess of his information has made "Options Action" one of the longest standing shows on CNBC's network and Stutland is always preaching ways for investors to use options in order to risk less to make more. On "Futures Now," Stutland is able to show the world that Chicago is king of the futures markets as he discusses how to invest one's portfolio with derivative type investments.

For Stutland,success in providing investors with actionable information does not come without an extensive success line himself. In 2011, BrianStutland founded what is now known as Equity Armor Investments, LLC, an investment advisory firm registered with the state of Illinois.Stutland,as CIO, helps to service clients in the financial world and create licensed indices using Equity Armor's proprietary trading methodologies. In 2014,Stutland became a sub-advisor to a volatility based mutual fund but now license their proprietary volatility indices to entities like Bank of Montreal.

Stutland hasn't just relied on his volatility trading expertise to bring the public efficient ways of investing, but through his holding company Alpha II Zeta, LLC and Equity Armor Investments,Stutland has partnered with companies where his investment, trading expertise, and marketing knowledge of the industry helped transform research based stock analytics companies into huge successful management companies.

Whether it has been creating liquidity for customers to access the Chicago Board Options Exchange's products or broadcasting live media from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange trading floors,Stutland has given Chicago and its city exposure to Wall Street.Stutland first established himself as a true market participant as founder and head trader of the biggest VIX options market making firm on the CBOE from 2006 to 2014. Not only hasStutland been integral in providing Chicago with a voice in the financial markets, his former broker/dealerStutland Equities was an extremely successful market making business, trading multi-million dollar positions dating back to 2005.

Brian graduated Cum Laude in 1997 from the University of Michigan with a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering and later received a M.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1999 before becoming a floor trader in 1999. He currently holds licenses for Series 65 and 56.